Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Jibrin Okutepa, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s claim that political opponents are responsible for the hardship in the country, insisting that Nigerians want practical answers to their daily struggles rather than blame.
Okutepa said he was reacting to remarks attributed to the President at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign flag-off in Kaduna on Saturday.
He stressed that he is not a politician and is not campaigning for anyone, describing himself as a legal practitioner and a Nigerian who cares about the rule of law, public accountability and good governance.
In a post on X handle on Sunday, the legal luminary said the statement did not appeal to him or to many Nigerians, who he believes are no longer interested in such narratives.
According to the senior lawyer, the hardship people endure is not the work of the government’s political rivals.
He said it is the combined result of governance failures under successive administrations since the return to civilian rule in 1999.
“Hunger has no party affiliation,” he said, adding that poverty does not separate supporters of the ruling party from members of the opposition.
In his view, families who cannot afford food, education, healthcare or shelter gain neither relief nor hope from hearing political adversaries blamed.
Okutepa argued that those entrusted with public power must accept responsibility for how they use it.
He noted that the government controls public resources, sets policy priorities and is duty bound to provide security and create conditions in which citizens can earn a decent living.
Opponents, he said, do not prepare budgets or run policies, so criticism of failure cannot sensibly be presented as the cause of that failure.
He added that accountability should reach beyond the current administration.
Successive governments, he said, had chances to strengthen institutions, improve infrastructure, support production and protect public resources, and the failures built up over the years cannot be wiped away by changing party names, alliances or slogans.
Politicians who served in earlier administrations, he said, must give an honest account of their records when asking for another mandate.
The senior lawyer clarified that he was not saying every administration carries equal blame or that external economic pressures are irrelevant.
His point, he said, is that leaders must explain their decisions, admit their shortcomings and show what they are doing to improve lives.
Okutepa also warned that claims of sabotage need evidence and must never become a convenient replacement for competent governance.
He urged campaigners to answer the questions Nigerians face every day: how food will become affordable, how communities will be made secure, how businesses will survive, how young people will find productive work, and what measurable gains public spending will deliver and within what timeframe.
Those, he said, are the issues that deserve the campaign platform, while insults, conspiracy theories and invented enemies only dodge the duty to answer them.
He did not spare the opposition, saying it too must present credible alternatives and open its promises to scrutiny.
Democracy, he said, depends on a contest of ideas, records and practical solutions, and Nigerians are entitled to demand results from those who govern and substance from those who want to govern.
Okutepa concluded that the suffering of the people must not be turned into material for partisan excuses, urging politicians to campaign on what they have done, what they will do and how they will do it.
